Guides/books for digital painting?

[ceddo]

Hey,
I've been looking all over the web and where I live for a guide or a book for digital painting, and I've found two books that might be what I'm looking for but I'd like to make sure before I purchase anything. I basically want a book that explores the different ways of doing digital painting, techniques and brushes that could be used, step-by-step WIP's by the greats to show how they do it, etc.

Has anyone had the problem of not finding what they want, and can anyone link me to a good book or guide with what i'm looking for in it?

.c

[Ben2theEdge]

Read this: http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/tuts/process.jpg
And this: http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/art_tut.htm

[ceddo]

Wow, I can't believe I forgot this guy, and didn't know he had process tutorials too These are perfect! Thanks.

[Sherman Gill]

The process tutorial is relatively new, I think .

[sharprm]

I bought "Digital Character Design and Painting" - theres a preview on google books. Its aimed for someone with the program "painter". It has a cd with it with a couple of videos of him painting (painter records the history of bursh strokes).

In terms of how useful it will be - I can't say really. I screwed up the trail version of painter shortly after buying the book so I didn't get to use it much.

[ceddo]

That's unfortunate .
This is the book I have in mind for now, but it hasn't been released yet. I also found another one, but I'm not sure about its' quality (front cover looks pretty lame).

[Ben2theEdge]

The process tutorial is relatively new, I think .

Yeah, that one helped me out a lot. I tend to get lost when I paint, I go in for tiny details and forget to keep in mind the lightsource and the overall composition. His technique of basically cell-shading and then painting over it makes a lot of sense and it keeps me from getting lost. Plus if you're doing actual concept art for someone and you have to send them an unfinished piece, it still looks pretty nifty.

[junkboy]

I inherited a bunch of these old Reader's Digest books with fascinating titles like "How to paint exotic wildflowers" and ""Bears, Boars and Beavers in watercolor - the fun way!". While I suspect they aren't exactly the Creme de la Creme when it comes to paint tutoring, I think they've been fairly helpful in improving my digital game. So if I were you I'd go with traditional books on painting, and just try to apply the techniques and methods in Photoshop, or whatever painting software you prefer to use.